Hey BrassMonki. I've always been a fan of your designs, and it's nice to finally see some which don't appear to be a simple photoshop job. I was just wondering about your side of this story, and also this one. It seems you have quite the track record of ripping people off, and I wanted to hear your side of the story.
I urge anyone looking to do business with him to read the links I've posted, but hear him out too.

So you broke down from being overwhelmed because you got too much attention too quick... And then you post on Reddit for hundreds of thousands more to check them out before you've got your shit sorted?

All that said, don't you think you're still being a bit naive by ignoring the potential copyright implications of your business? You could be setting yourself up for something way, way worse in the future.

Fair enough mate. Good on you for replying and being honest. I hope you've learnt from your mistakes and don't get overwhelmed again, for you and your customers sake. And as someone said further up, I'd look into the legality of what you're doing, or you might end up in a heap of shit. Companies like that don't fuck about when it comes to copyright infringement, and you could be paying out a lot more than you earned.
*EDIT: THIS is the attack of the show clip? There's people commenting on it saying they've been waiting months for the shoes as early as 2 weeks ago. What happened with their orders and why have they been waiting so long? I'm guessing they've paid upfront and you said it takes around 20 hours to finish a pair. How come they've been waiting 3 months/8 months/2 years? I don't think it's a good idea taking more orders on when you still haven't sent people shoes from 2 years ago. Not really a solid business plan by the looks of it mate.

So basically we have at best a really really poor businessman, at worst a scammer..that gives a shit less about selling shoes with highly copywrited images...which means there is the potential that you could place an order and he gets super sued into the ground.

And frankly there is nothing terribly impressive about copying images and basically pasting them on shoes. It shouldn't take 20 hours to create the images as he claims, as the vast majority of work is done for him.

Well you can sell them, but you can't legally sell them... If you've attracted their attention (which you apparently have if you've received letters), get a lawyer. In fact, get a better lawyer than one who tells you 'if you continue to hand-paint them, you can sell them!'.

The main problem is that he is profiting off of the copyrighted images.

The point of a copyright is to protect the creators of the creative work. Think of all the effort and money that Nintendo had to spend to make Mario a popular and beloved character. We award copyright protection to the original creator of such characters to encourage the creator and other artists/creators to continue with such creative efforts.

To allow someone else to come along and profit off of these efforts without giving any sort of compensation to Nintendo is what copyright law protects against. It would not be fair to Nintendo or the other companies to allow BrassMonki to trade off of their hard work. He is making money mainly because people love these characters, not because he came up with any creative work himself, that's why it is a derivative work and against the law. Copyright holders have the right to create derivative works or give a license to someone to make derivative work.

If BrassMonki wanted to be legit, he should have asked for a license to make his shoes and paid some money to the companies to be allowed to trade off of their creative efforts.

Those aren't retail products. Furthermore pursuing an individual that gets such a tattoo would tire too many resources, mostly financial. I'm not saying you should stop by any means (I love the work) but you are ripe for the suing so to speak.

Do you have any legal precedents or are you just going on the fact that you believe hand painting them is fine by them? I mean, if they've sent you a bunch of letters perhaps it'd be wise to seek legal council instead of ignoring them.

I don't really understand why you're publicizing yourself this way. If I had your business model, I'd want as little attention as possible. Your business model is to take characters that are copyrighted (and many of them trademarked to) by companies, paint them on shoes, then sell the shoes without the permission of the copyright holder. And it's not like the use of the characters is incidental--it's the central attraction of the shoes. I'm very surprised you haven't been sued yet, and it boggles my mind that you're being hired by large UK companies despite the huge liability of the kind of work you're doing.

TL;DR what you're doing is very clearly and unambiguously against the law

This guy seems like a class-act fool, blaming his scamming on depression and being overwhelmed. Get your life straight before you go accepting 350 quid from someone for a pair of (fairly well) painted Forces.

I mean no offense, but I think the price is slightly insane. I absolutely love the designs and wanted a pair or two (before I saw the price). I know you must spend alot of time on each pair but a 560 USD (350 pound) starting price is kinda crazy. Again really love your work and maybe if I ever come into some money I'll get a few pairs.

What I'd be worried about is longevity. To me, it's okay to spend $500 on a pair of leather shoes if you're assured that they're going to last for more than 5-10 years. Plus, with a good company, they'll back their shoe and take them in for remakes (e.g. Allen Edmonds). In contrast, how long do sneakers last, even with very careful care?

What you're doing, in this case, is buying a piece of art. Like a painting. Except now you wear the painting on your feet and trod all over it.

Wow, that really wouldn't justify that price tag for me, but I'm also not as talented as you, so I really don't know the additional materials/efforts you'd need to waste to make such a shoe. I take it you also coat it, so the paint is resilient and doesn't just brush off at the first instance of grime/friction/nature. It's definitely awesome work though, I'll give you that. Given a reasonable price, I'd definitely look into it, as I love shoes and games, so why not both?

Am I right in thinking you're using the NikeID customisation for the base colours and then drawing on top of that? If so I can understand the price, seeing as those things cost about £100 in the first place.

Thats if you buy into the 20 hours in the first place. It shouldn't take 20 hours to essentially recreate an already completed image. My 10 year old does this with characters pretty well..and it takes her like 2 hours tops per character. I think he is including dry time.

If you basically print out the character..trace the edges, let it dry, and copy color fill in..It shouldn't take 20 hours of actual labor time to complete a pair..which makes the back-orders all the more mind-blowing. Cartoon style characters are intentionally easy to recreate...smaller number of lines..less colors..little blending/shading..lines tend to be much more angular..ect..ect.

For instance..how long would it take you to recreate the Umbrella corp symbol? 15 min maybe.

I'll tell you how he makes them. He buys a plain leather pair of Nike SB Dunks, and paints on them. That's it. If you want to learn to paint I daresay there are better resources already available to you.

I don't think it can be this simple, as the shoes will still have the clear coat put on when making them, and any paint on this would crack and peel. This would especially be the case with SB's as they are coated multiple times to make them suitable for skateboarding.

There must be a removing process and a resealing stage, otherwise it just wouldn't work.

Are you UK based? I noticed the site is priced in ££££. If so, do you ever show them off in public? I'd love to order a custom pair but it's hard to gauge what the final product would look like up close in real life. Especially if I'm dropping around £350 for them.

Also I am a big foot, do you cater for all sizes?

If i already have a plain white shoe i like, would it be possible to send that to you, can it be any shoe?

Sorry for hijacking this post but I wanted to give you some feedback, coming from someone who actually has collected shoes (specifically Nike SBs, Dunks, and Jordans) for many, many years.

If you're serious about customizing, you need to start doing reconstructions. Right away.

The shoes you make are only marginally higher quality than the cheap novelty pairs that one could find at, say, a swap meet or at a stand in Times Square. No offense, but anyone with a modicum of painting ability can paint a picture of Link on a shoe. You are charging FAR too much money for your work, regardless of how long each pair takes. For 350 to 1000 pounds, I would expect a quality reconstruction on the level of something like this.

Do you see the difference? Sbtg, the artist who created that pair, is working within the same price range as you and instead of merely purchasing a cheap, generic pair of dunks and painting on the (cheap, plastic) leather, he is working from scratch, reconstructing a nike shoe design from a bare skeleton using his own choice of materials- in this case denim, zippers, nicer leathers, etc.

Reconstruction takes a lot more work, but that's kind of my point... If you'd like to incorporate your painting into your reconstructions, more power to you! That actually sounds like a promising idea. I'd love to see you take advantage of the talent you have and reach your full potential as a customizer. There are too few of you out there.

So I was looking at your website and I saw the Joker shoes were called "The Killing Joke". All I could think was that it should have been called "The Running Joke" because like, shoes. And you run with shoes.

Have you ever heard of Ndeur? He's from France and also does art on shoes. I haven't seen him active in a while and don't know where to buy his shoes, but I thought you'd like to take a peek at his stuff.

Dude, you're doing great but im
Not sure of anything with the copyright infringement. I do know if you bought a pair of kswiss ariakes for Parkour and customized them for me .... I'd pay you good money

How did you actually get started doing this? In terms of networking, advertising, getting people to buy your really pricey shoes? This is something I've been thinking of doing for a while, but I have no idea how to get started,

Awesome job. Don't worry about petty bitter assholes that talk about Copyright, you'll be just fine. People just love to find flaws with other people's work and try to shit on them. This is great! Looks great!

You know shoes get messed up right? They kinda go on your feet that touches the ground. I know crazy right! For that much they should hover and tie themselves or serve some type of function other than letting everyone know how horrible with money you are. Just saying...

"Prices start from £350 per pair and the cost will rise with increasing complexity. The reason for this is simply the increased length in time that it takes to produce more complicated designs. The only way to know the exact price of your footwear dream is to contact us."

I was about to post saying that these aren't yours and these are BrassMonki's, then I saw your name. Has your website changed or something? I tried to go on the other day to have a browse and it didn't exist anymore or something. I love pretty much all of your designs, I was thinking of buying some but I have a severe lack of funds right now. Keep up the good work though sir!

Quite nice. I don't know how many people knew or heard of customatix back in the day where you could customize your own shows. Anyways, you could do something like that and get that work out. I'd definitely pay for some.